Category Archives: Issue 1

I was convinced that Trump’s total cave on the longest federal shutdown in history was a mortal wound to Trump. If he had kept the shutdown going indefinitely or until congress finally surrendered border wall funding to him, I was fully convinced that the 2020 race was his to lose. I was equally certain that if he was the one to blink first, that the tables would flip, and his reelection would be nearly impossible against any but a few of the DNC’s contenders…

I hear it a lot, being a Libertarian running for office: those Libertarians and their “crazy” ideas. Letting people choose to live their lives as they see fit, not as the government forces them to? How would we all survive? How would that work? Isn’t that something that only works in small widespread farm communities?

Before I begin to discuss what libertarianism means to me through my Libertarian Socialist lenses, I first want to start off by providing a list of definitions, so that the reader is clear as to what to expect going forward. The obvious way to begin is to start with defining libertarian socialism. Libertarian Socialism is a social system which believes in freedom of action and thought and free will, in which the producers possess…

In 1996 the best and brightest presidential candidate for the Republican party was Senator Bob Dole. As Dole emerged as the best hope against the second reign of the evil Clinton empire, I remember watching his campaign stops and speeches. I was several years out of college and had strongly identified as a conservative due to the messages of smaller government and more individual freedoms…

Our core beliefs and convictions should translate into a worldview, and (if you feel inclined to be civically engaged) that worldview should mold and shape your ideology. Too often though, it’s the other way around – our political ideologies shape our sense of morality and personal philosophies. This has certainly been the case for me at times in my life, and is still a bad habit that is easy to get sucked into…

My journey into libertarian thinking has been a path fraught with peril, full of twists and turns, hills, mountains, valleys and the like. While it was never anything physically threatening, my journey has been an important part of the larger adventure that is my life.

I still remember the feeling I had standing outside of the capital of Denver amidst a sea of people. I was struck by the profound wit of some of the signs that called for low (no) taxation and smaller government. I clapped with those surrounding me as speakers called for getting out of foreign wars. I cheered as, for the first time in my young life, members of the LGBTQ community shook hands with conservatives. It was a feeling of unity…

“Whatever you think may be of value to your community, to the libertarian community – use my platform to do it… the more people that participate in We Are Libertarians, the more value they get out of it.”

So said Chris Spangle when he laid out the goals of We Are Libertarians for 2019. In an effort to maximize the value of the organization he founded (and to make deplatforming We Are Libertarians (WAL) more difficult via proliferation of creative and distributive efforts), Spangle presented an open invitation to produce content under the well-known We Are Libertarians banner.

(The following content was originally published on WeAreLibertarians.com)
“We toss out the screaming heads, put people before political parties, and give context to the news to make you think.”
– Chris Spangle

Issue I of the WAL Reader magazine is now available! Thank you to everyone involved in the process of creating this magazine, and especially to everyone who contributed content to this first issue. And of course, a special thanks to Chris Spangle for allowing us to create this under the We Are Libertarians label…